Redemption
by Dawn of Daybreak
Summary: In the end, Ryosuke was content with letting Bagi roam free in Republic of Monica. But two years have now passed, and Ryo, who is being plagued by dreams of the feline, is now having second thoughts about breaking the only promise he ever tried to keep.


Ignorant One Production Presents…..

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**REDEMPTION**

A Bagi the Mighty Monster of Nature Fanfiction

It was like being there all over again…

"_I love to dance! I dance for you, Ryo!"_

_The feline woman could not contain her joy despite the dark skies and pouring rain; the heavy droplets slowly tearing away at the dress of feathers she had made while Ryosuke Ishigami had slept. The injured fifteen year old cradled the nearly healed gash on his shoulder and sat up to watch the genetics experiment prance around the mud and rain, humming the tune of an old aerobics show she had seen nearly nine years ago. The young man felt the cool rain slide down his pale skin and paste his normally unruly black hair to his head; the boy shivered but kept his eyes on the dancing woman._

_Bagi was someone Ryo could only describe as 'different'. The product of a genetics experiment created by the Super Life Research Facility, Bagi was created when human DNA was placed inside of the embryo of an American Mountain Lion, or Puma. The fusion of the DNA had an adverse side effect on her when she was born, instead of her fur being black or a myriad of browns or tans, she was born with startling pink fur. Bagi was an experiment, a byproduct of people who were trying to play God._

_The Super Life Research Facility out in the isolated mountains of Japan conducted thousands of horrible experiment all in the name of scientific progress, ranging from gene manipulation to cybernetics; their procedures involving removal of an animal's head and placing it onto a cybernetic body to see if the animal could control it. The Super Life Center had multiple floors, each floor dedicated to something different, the Cybernetics floor was above the hydroponics and experimental cacti research levels. The most important level and staple of the Super Life Center, the Genetics laboratory, was in the basement level under the tightest of security. It was there that Bagi, as well as many other animals like her, were born and raised._

_Their existence was miserable, born to be experimented on, genetically modified, mutated, and then disposed of like yesterday's trash should they no longer hold any more scientific value to the company. However, a glimmer of hope appeared to these lab animals in the form of an earthquake, which disabled the lower level security systems and allowed fifteen of the lab animals to escape towards freedom. Among those fifteen were Bagi and her mother. The escape was quick and clean for the band of fifteen, but once out in the outside world, they were hunted down one by one and killed without remorse; the head of the genetics department fearing for negative press and the possible shut-down the Super Life Center for ethics violations._

_The head of this department was Professor Ishigami, a graduate of Tokyo University with a double major in Bioengineering and Genetics, and later earning a Doctorate in both fields. She was also Ryosuke's mother. During Ryo's and Bagi's break-in at the Super Life Center and their subsequent interrogation of it's President, they both learned horrible truths. For Bagi it was that she was an experiment…a monster and was only valued as a test subject, and for Ryo, it was the fact that his own mother was the one that not only created her, but signed the orders for her death warrant._

_After learning of his mother's location in the Republic of Monica at the Cucaracha Research Facility, a small country plagued by civil war and famine, the pair slip onto an aircraft in an attempt to stop his mother and make her leave her research. But on the way they encountered a snag: during the flight, Bagi was nearly assassinated by an agent of the Super Life Center. After Ryo rescued the pink feline, they were ejected from the cargo section of the aircraft and land in a river using a makeshift parachute. As soon as they hit the water they were separated from the strong currents, and Ryo was injured; the sharp rocks opening up a large gash in his shoulder._

_Now here he was, the wound stinging slightly as he shifted against the tree and continued to watch the feline dance in the rain, singing without a care in the world. "Watch me, Ryo!" _

_The young boy did indeed watch Bagi, impressed by her acrobatics, levels of control and body flexibility; performing aerial maneuvers that would make even world class gymnasts green with envy. The pink mountain lioness performed them all with relative ease, swinging her body through the air and swishing her tail for balance as she landed. _

_Ryo smiled and shook his head as he turned around, crawling over to a thick patch of leaves that sheltered him from the downpour. "Come out of the rain, Bagi! You're soaked!"_

_Bagi shook her head and somersaulted backwards before performing the same acrobatics forwards. "I don't care, Ryo! I just want to dance!" Her voice was so pure and genuinely joyous, the pink feline continuing to dance despite the increasing downpour. Ryo smirked and rested underneath the thick waxy leaves of the nearby bushes as the rain continued to fall. _

"_Bagi…" He whispered to himself as he watched her dance until his eyelids felt like they weighed more than a ton, and under the relative dryness of the thick bush, he slowly dozed off; the rain lightening up in a matter of seconds to a gentle downpour._

_After almost falling asleep, he was awakened when he felt sopping wet fur press against his exposed chest and a thick, wet tail wrap around his leg; soaking what little was dry. The young man let out a sigh and opened his eyes to see the mountain lioness' own twinkling in the hazy moonlight. Ryo smiled and let a hand slide up to caress her check, "Bagi…you silly kitty. Now you got me all wet. Oh well…I guess it's kind of nostalgic…you used to do the same when we were kids. So go on, do what felines do…we probably won't get much time to do this in the future." _

_The feline smiled warmly and nuzzle his check before settling up to his side; resting her head on his shoulder but keeping her arms to herself; despite her fur being wet, the flesh underneath was warm from her gleeful dancing, and it did not fail to keep them warm through the damp night. _

The jarring of the train startled Ryosuke Ishigami from his light sleep.

With a slight grunt, the twenty-two year old man shifted against the hard padded bench that he was currently sitting against. Light sleep. It was all Ryo ever got since he left Bagi back in the Republic of Monica two years earlier. Constant dreams of the pink feline plagued him every time he shut his eyes, and soon enough he was coming to his wits end. It took a prescription to put him into a dreamless sleep, unfortunately his medication supply ran out, and he was forced to cope with moving pictures of her visage and voice every time he closed his eyes.

"_Watch me Ryo!"_

The young mercenary shook his head violently to rid his mind of her voice, and he rested his head against the cool glass in an attempt to calm his thoughts. Ryo looked out the window, and saw an endless row of trees as they passed him by; vines that hung from the trees looking like snakes at the high speeds of the locomotive. Where was he?

Ah, that's right. He was in Brazil, heading towards a small fishing village fifteen miles south of the Republic of Monica. When word got out about El President's move to kill rebel villages with a genetically modified rice, the Brazilian government placed a bounty on not only the hidden President's head, but on any of his cabinet members as well. The South American country hoped to overthrow the corrupt dictatorship and install more sympathetic leaders. The ulterior motive was plain as day to Ryo: more sympathetic leadership meant more valuable contracts to Brazilian mining companies; the work in the mineral rich nation would greatly boost Brazil's own economy.

Philipe Gonzalas was his target. The Secretary of Scientific Studies. Ryo felt his jaw tighten as he thought about the man that started the Rice for Life program in the La Cucaracha Research Facility. To the outside world, with the given information, it would seem absurd to send mercenaries after this man seeing as he started such a noble program to feed the starving population.

However, it was this man, Philipe Gonzalas, that contacted the President about Professor Ishigami's defection and elimination of the poison rice. Ryosuke narrowed his eyes, it was _that_ man who blew the whistle and got his mother killed. This was personal.

Twenty-five thousand US dollars was his bounty.

The President was still at large, seeing as his bounty carried at hefty number of zeros, and he was still Ryosuke's main target, but the seventy-five thousand the corrupt dictator's Cabinet Secretary, Secretary of War, and his Chief of Police were more than enough to keep the mercenary supplied. With it, he was able to replace his older weaponry for some of the more modern equipment; giving him a much greater edge than he had before.

An edge he intended to abuse every chance possible. Anything to get back at the men who had a hand in his mother's death and Bagi's current condition.

A few rain drops pattered against his window as a light drizzled settled over the locomotive, and the screeching of the train could be heard as it dropped its speed to a safer level thanks to the precipitation. Ryosuke allowed himself to close his eyes for a little while longer, knowing that the next stop wasn't for another couple of hours. As the pictures of the feline began to play across his eyelids like a movie, he began to wonder how the genetically modified feline was faring out in the wilderness. The man wondered if she was ok.

If he wanted too, the La Cucaracha Mountains were just a day's travel away by train and plane, Ryosuke could spare a few hundred dollars to track and find the mountain lioness.

"Damn." The man spat as he opened his eyes. It took him nearly five years to find Bagi last time, what made him think he could track her across an entire mountain range within one day? Ryosuke shook his head from side to side as he laid himself down on the sparsely padded bench, folding up his jacket to use as a pillow.

Two whole years. Twenty-four months. Seven-hundred and thirty days of plagued nights.

Ryosuke had already seen several leading psychologists, and all of them told him very similar things. In each session he had rarely mentioned Bagi, passing her off as a companion native to the Republic, and he tried his best to focus on talking about his mother and his and Bagi's search for her…and her horrible death. Many wrote it off as survivor's guilt, telling him that he felt insecure because despite all of the hardships he went through; he lived while the person he tried to save died. However, there was one doctor that told him that his problem didn't lie in his mother as much as it did within Bagi.

"_You're problem is not your mother's death, it seems that you have already come to terms with her passing…it is this companion of yours, Bagi."_

_Ryu felt a little surprised at the psychologist's comment. _

"_It is how you described her." The doctor continued, "You constantly go back to her faithfulness, steadfast courage and loyalty. During your retelling, you made absolutely sure I knew about this woman." _

_**Hiya, readers! **_

_**This chapter has just been completely rewritten. Yup. I realized at the rate the plot would be advancing…it would take WAY too long to get to the meat and potatoes…and I would probably lose interest. Yeah, a rewrite… :P I personally like this a lot better than the first one. XD**_

_**But yeah, this is a fanfiction made by me for an under-seen and/or underrated theatrical anime movie.**_

_**This story is base on Bagi, the Mighty Monster of Nature, and if you haven't seen it yet, then watch it on Youtube…because that's the only place I could find it. Also, if you watch the movie, everything here will make sense…and if you haven't seen the movie yet, then I just spoiled certain portions of it for you…and if you wait for the second chapter to come out, I would have, by then, spoiled even more…same goes for the third chapter. Just watch the movie the first time. **_

_**Now, please, may I say that that movie was made in 1984…so the animation and quality aren't up to what you are normally used to watching…and it's a pretty funny movie if you truly take a look at it…but it is also a pretty sad movie. Just watch it. XD**_

_**Well, that is the end of my author's note. Special thanks goes out to CrackerJack the 4**__**th**__**, and Tex Hempioro…(who is a fellow writer here on in the ever wonderful Sly Cooper fandom. Check out his story "The Last True Crime") for their support in proofreading this for me. And thanks to you viewers, who have helped me be THE FIRST FANFICTION WRITER EVER TO CONTRIBUTE A STORY TO BAGI THEMIGHTY MONSTER OF NATURE!**_

_**Of course, I didn't do it for the glory…I did it because an awesome movie like that NEEDS a continuation and fanfiction…afterall this film was made, directed, and produced by the father of anime and manga!**_


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